


Blood Ties

by Merit



Category: Craft Sequence - Max Gladstone
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5996404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb grows up under the shadow of his father's legacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Ties

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



The first time Caleb woke up after being marked by his father – twisted dreams of leering, lurking gods, running through his mind, the distant sound of laughter, the slither of vast snakes around his ankles, scales rattling – he felt pain and closed his eyes, his hand going to his chest, though the pain extended down his arms, his legs, but most of all, over his heart. He opened his eyes slowly, shaking his head of the cobwebs of laughter, of high shrieking, and focused on the slow breathing of his mother. She was sleeping, her face cracked with exhaustion, stray strands of hair sticking weakly to her forehead.

Caleb shifted. There was a shadow at the window, a moment, and it was gone as soon as he blinked, a slow shutter, he had barely enough energy to open them again. He kept his eyes a crack, the buzz of the hospital almost drowning out the memory of the laughter, and hoped he didn't dream. Caleb feared his dreams. Caleb knew it had been his father who had taken the knife to his body, knew it was his mother who had fled through Dresediel Lex. But he couldn't keep his eyes open and as he fell back into his dreams, his nightmares, his breath caught, a hitch.

It wasn't the last time Caleb would fall asleep dreaming of dead gods, blood and knives, his father a shadow he could never quite see.

 

* * *

 

A man passed up ahead and Caleb looked up briefly and then his father was in front of him, leaning against an old tree. His father watched him silently for several moments. Caleb felt up the rough fabric of his book bag. His mother said he could just look away, just walk away and his father, his father would let him. But Temoc, still untouched by age despite having fought in the Gods' Wars over fifty years ago, touched by the Gods' favour, was hard to ignore. He was a presence when everyone else could be ignored. Caleb didn't know _how_ he managed to keep hidden when it was so obvious he was someone important.

“Hello my son,” Temoc said, speaking in Quechal. He only spoke Quechal with Caleb these days and Caleb remembered being sung to as a child, old Quechal nursery rhymes of blood and sacrifice and the sharp blade of the knife. He has been fascinated by them, when he was younger, before Skittersill. But it was because of the knife that he wore long sleeves and shied away from swimming, even on the hottest of days.

His mother only sighed and then buttoned the long sleeves, holding him close for a moment before sending him off to school. The other children rarely teased him, not when the streets were still lined with posters with Temoc's face, with his crimes, the list that grew longer with every year that passed. “War criminal, terrorist, _monster,_ ” people whispered in the streets. He didn't understand the people who muttered, “Priest, Eagle Knight, _hero_ ,” when so many had died at his father's hand.

The scars twitched and instinctively Caleb's hand went to his elbow. He rubbed it, biting his lip, not quite looking his father in the eye.

“I don't have to speak to you if I don't want you to,” Caleb said, Quechel still clumsy on his tongue. But nothing ever was said right in front of his father.

His father frowned before nodding solemnly. “I will, of course, respect your wishes,” Temoc said and the words burned because Caleb had spent weeks, months properly healing from the scars Temoc had inflicted on him.

Caleb shook his head, hot tears in his eyes, as he turned and fled.

 

* * *

 

“It was to keep you safe,” Temoc said, appearing one day in the garden. Caleb's mother was away for several weeks and she had approached Caleb, asking if he would be okay being alone, holding his hands, pressing a kiss against his forehead, when he nodded and murmured he would be fine. He didn't think his father had _meant_ to hurt him.

Caleb had planned on spending most of the time relaxing in the garden, steadily ignoring the rising pile of dishes, the dust on the floor.

“It puts a target on my back,” Caleb said, scowling. “Not that most people even understand what they are. They just think it is something _old._ ” He had been asked, by some youth with an Iskari accent, if they were tattoos, if they had any _real_ meaning. Caleb had shaken his head, anger hot on his tongue, the teen looking confused.

His father's face didn't change. And it had never really changed as long as Caleb had been alive. The Gods had done this, the ones still alive, the ones that couldn't bear to show the faces in the same city as the King in Red. Caleb had idly wondered what the man, _skeleton_ , would actually be like. Something more than human, he thought, shifting so he could only see Temoc out of the corner of his eye.

“And that has to change,” Temoc said and Caleb shook his head, clenching a fist.

“As if you know anything about change!”

“I tried to change,” his father said, a small smile on his face and Caleb was taken back to when he was a child, when he would run inside and his father would pick him up. The endless card games he would play, some games were just _better_ with three. “I had wanted peace after fighting a terrible battle. And the King in Red, he slaughtered our people, he has driven our culture and religion underground, he destroyed thousands of lives for money,” Temoc spat, his face twisting with distaste. “This could not be forgiven, my son,” Temoc said, voice slightly pleading, his hand out stretched.

“You'll never understand,” Caleb hissed, he stood up and took one step forward. Temoc regarded him calmly. But the man had fought the King in Red atop a dragon, Caleb couldn't see him ever being afraid. “And you want me to be just like you. _Alone_.”

He stalked inside, taking pleasure in slamming the door shut. The kitchen was spotless, clean dishes drying on the rack and Caleb had to fight down the urge to shout, to yell. This wasn't going to win him over, Caleb thought darkly, as he sank to the ground, cursing the gentle lemon scent.

 

* * *

 

The day Caleb sent in the job application to the King in Red - “Corp!” Teo had scoffed, “You'll probably never meet the guy.” The guy in question being a skeleton who had fought his father atop a dragon, raining destruction on the city, before summarily exiling his father. Though his father had never been strong on the idea of 'exile' – Caleb drowned three shot glasses of tequila and watched as the cards swam in front of his eyes. The half finished bottle which had been consumed before sending in the application probably wasn't helping matters.

The cards wavered. The people around the table watched him, their faces moving like water and Caleb shook his head, throwing his cards in. The goddess had already moved on, her smile on another player, as Caleb pushed back his chair and escaped to the balcony outside.

Dresediel Lex was lit up, vast avenues of light, out shining the brightest stars. The old pyramids blots on the skyline. The lights blurred in front of his eyes, a whisper of air behind his back and Caleb tensed and then relaxed, wishing he had drunk more, that he had never left the table, that a thousand things had never happened.

He didn't regret sending the application in, though.

“Hi dad,” Caleb said, staring down at the city. He didn't turn around but he could hear his father breathing.

His father opened his mouth and Caleb closed his eyes.


End file.
